Getting to the crime scene before police arrive

Pictured above:Danny Long, 60, examines his bleeding finger after someone tried to stab him at a downtown bus stop.

When reporters cover crime stories, police almost always beat us to the scene. By the time we hear about a crime on our walkie-talkie-style police scanners and get to the location, officers have already secured the area, located witnesses, and started looking for a suspect — if one hasn’t been arrested already.

But this morning was different.

I was driving back to the newsroom from the city’s magistrate office on Frio Street downtown when the police scanner started warbling frantically. A dispatcher told officers there was a stabbing at the Pik-Nik Foods gas station at Frio and West Commerce.

Um … didn’t I just drive by the Pik-Nik Foods at Frio and West Commerce?

I turned the car around. There wasn’t any parking allowed on Frio so I pulled into a tiny parking lot at the Pik-Nik gas station. Everything looked fine — some homeless people were milling around. No one was panicking. And no police officers were in sight. I began to wonder if this was the right place.

After a few moments, a police cruiser rolled to a stop at a red light at the intersection, but its sirens were silent and a police officer in the passenger seat wasn’t even looking at the Pik-Nik Foods.

I was about to roll down my window to get the officers’ attention when I heard sirens. Several police cars, lights blazing, converged on the gas station and officers rushed into the convenience store. No victim or assailant was inside. Then a tall man wearing a cap, bifocals and rumpled clothes walked up to police and announced he was the victim.

It turned out the victim, Danny Long, 60, was alive and well. Long said a homeless man had pulled a knife on him at a nearby bus stop and attacked him. The man slashed Long’s windbreaker and nicked his finger, drawing blood.

An officer with salt-and-pepper hair repeatedly asked Long where the assailant went and what he looked like, but Long kept talking about the attack and showing officers his cut finger. An ambulance pulled up but Long said he didn’t want to go to the hospital.

Police finally figured out the man headed West down Commerce towards a homeless shelter, and officers found a witness who gave them a decent description — the attacker was in his 50s or 60s, with a black shirt, orange baseball cap, and tattoos on his arms.

“I’ll go with you,” Long offered to police, and he got into the back of a police cruiser. Officers fanned out in their cars, forming a quadrant in the area. But they had no luck finding the attacker.

After awhile, Officer David Agueros and his partner dropped Long back at the bus stop where the attack had occurred. I asked Long what had happened. Long said he vaguely knew the man and told him “Happy New Years.” The man “freaked out,” pulled out a knife, and started swinging.

How big was the knife?

“Big enough to hurt,” Long replied.

The police officers told Long to stay safe and that they would keep looking for the attacker.